December 16 - 20

Dear Families,

This week was full of fun and excitement!  The children were proud to share all of their hard work in music class at the winter music concert on Tuesday.

We are excited to have Mr. Lee (our Student Teacher) with us full time beginning January 2nd!

This week we learned:
~Water and wind can change the land.
~Nonfiction readers use post-its to share wonders. 
This week we experienced:
~Writing leads that hook our readers.
~Using rhyme patterns to read smoothly.
~Watching Frosty's Winter Wonderland for an all school celebration.
Other Things to Ask Your Child About:
~Breathing with gems
~The Tens & Nines game
~The silent greeting 

Wishing you all a wonderful holiday season and a Happy New Year!  Thank you for sharing your wonderful children with me each day!

Katie

December 9 -13

Dear Families,

Special thanks to Amanda Dooley and Sarah Pineda for presenting this month's MakerTime lesson about Capillary Action.  We had a lot of fun seeing how water is absorbed by paper towels and other objects!

Our "comfy reading" celebration was a big success.  The children even participated in comfy Mindfulness.

This week we learned:
~To use the Splitting strategy to add two-digit numbers.
~Nonfiction writers help readers picture information by adding what something looks & feels like.

This week we experienced:
~Reading nursery rhymes to look for spelling patterns.
~Making sure our reading voice matches the information we are learning in our nonfiction books.
~Building add ten and add nine facts on a ten strip.

Other Things to Ask Your Child About:
~Knights in Shining Armor
~Fast changes vs. slow changes
~December calendar pattern

Have a great weekend,
Katie

December 2 - 6

Dear Families,

It was wonderful to see all the smiling faces back at school this week!

This week we began our new Phonics Units of Study.  Each phonics lesson is about twenty minutes long, and is meant to mirror the structure of our reading and writing workshop.  Ask your child about it!

We also began learning about Earth's changes.  During this unit we will be learning about weathering and erosion.  Ask your child about the rock tumbler!

Math warm-up:  What could the question be?

Using Raz-Kids during Reading Menu - your child can access it from home now.  Check out the letter sent home today.

This week we learned:
~Silent e can sneak onto the end of a word and change the vowel to a long sound.
~Nonfiction readers use text features to solve tricky words. 

This week we experienced:
~Making tea in Farm to School.
~Listing expert topics in tiny topic notebooks.
~Playing 101 and out using the open number line.

Other things to ask your child about:
~The Polygon song
~The Rows & Columns game
~The Zones of Regulation (blue, green, yellow, red)

Have a great weekend!
Katie